Project Tango

Prototype phone

3D models of the surrounding environment

Custom hardware

Project Tango concept

Real world to virtual world

From research to real world

When Google sold off Motorola Mobility, it held onto the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) assets -- and it appears we're now getting a bit of look at Google's bigger-picture vision behind the reason why: Project Tango.

Google has been working with universities, research labs, and industrial partners to build a unique 3D mapping-capable mobile phone. The device, Google says, will enable mobile phones to have a "human-scale understanding of space and motion," allowing for a deeper interaction with the surrounding environment.

Tango exists as a 5-inch Android phone prototype. The prototype phone has customized hardware and software, which allows it to track the motion of the device in full 3D in real time. The suite of sensors can make more than 250 million 3D measurements every second.

Johnny Lee of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects says this unique phone is the product of 10 years of thinking put into one fundamentally different prototyping device, potentially changing what a phone is and could be.